It is quite a feat to undertake a recording of Brahms
One in one's seventies. At eighty the task is Herculean. Rubinstein
was eighty-nine. It was his final concerto recording, in May 1976, and
followed his discs of the same work with Leinsdorf in Boston in 1964
and his earlier and most famous recording of the concerto with Reiner
in Chicago in 1954. Cyrus Meher-Homji’s part of the notes – which deal
with the performance whilst Carl Rosman’s deal with the work - are quite
honest about the technical limitations inevitably to be found in Rubinstein’s
playing. He quotes Mehta on the subject of the first movement’s development
section and its octave passages – these had constantly to be retaken
because Rubinstein’s failing sight meant he couldn’t see the right hand
notes.

This is a predominantly slow reading, still moving,
but not really comparable with the earlier recordings - and especially
that with Reiner – in either vigour or finesse. After a dramatic but
broad opening tutti Rubinstein enters at a much slower tempo, with very
slightly choppy rhythm. Not all his trills are clean and he has obvious
problems – as noted above – in those dramatic octave passages. Yet there
is something quietly and nourishingly compelling about the playing in
the slow movement - for all that the balance characteristically favoured
the soloist to an unnatural degree. The finale is slow but full of clarity
and playfulness. As throughout there are numerous finger slips – some
minor, some not – and listen at 7’01 for a particular example. But be
sure as well to listen at 10’00 to the insouciance and sheer cheekiness
of his playing, with his spicy treble fillips. Even at 89 he was incorrigible,
especially in the light of the immediately succeeding passage – very,
very scrappy.

Julius Katchen’s 1965 Ballades complete the disc –
a rather curious collection of virtues and demerits. There is much introspection
and glitteringly good playing but the Fourth is very fast and the opening
of Eduard never coalesces with the following tempo. Elsewhere
clarity and propulsion are paramount to the semi-exclusion of real and
consistent involvement.

An uneven disc then; it’s probably better to remember
Rubinstein’s Brahms One from his 1954 sessions than to persist with
the imperfections of old age in this moving but flawed last testament.

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